HARDLY ANYBODY outside the horse-racing industry remembers all those frustrating trips to Harrisburg. Year after year, trainers, owners and breeders went to the state capital trying to get slot machines at racetracks. They wanted a tool that could give them a chance to compete with Delaware and West Virginia, two states that had slot-infused purses.

Behind the momentum from Smarty Jones' run to within 1 length of the 2004 Triple Crown, the force of Gov. Rendell's backing and whatever else conspiracy theorists want to believe, Act 71, the slots bill, was passed 5 years ago this month.

Without getting into all the other stuff that has been debated around the state, the law unquestionably has done exactly what it was intended to do for horse racing. The numbers are, in fact, staggering.

Purses at Philadelphia Park have gone up 100 percent in 5 years. Owners ran for $120,000 per day then and, given the overwhelming expenses associated with the game, barely survived. Now, they run for $240,000 per day. The Pennsylvania Derby has a $1 million purse that could go to $2 million.

To understand how this is happening, you have to understand the numbers. PhillyPark's casino opened in December 2006. In the first 3 weeks, players bet $175 million on the slots. In the fiscal year ending in June 2007, they bet $1.666 billion. In the next fiscal year, they bet $5.8 billion. In the fiscal year just ended, they bet $10.9 billion. Revenue (winnings after the players are paid) was $144 million, $469 million and $825 million, respectively.

Horse racing gets 12 percent of the gross revenue. The state gets 34 percent of the gross revenue. The local municipality gets 4 percent. The Economic Development and Tourism Fund gets 5 percent. The track gets the rest - 45 percent.

The revenue that goes to racing interests is divided three ways - purses get 80 percent, the breeders' fund 16 percent, and a health and pension fund 4 percent.

Incentives built into the law make breeding, racing and standing stallions in Pennsylvania quite a bit more appealing than they used to be. What this does, in turn, is create jobs at horse farms, make farmland more valuable, and give jockeys, trainers, hot walkers and grooms a piece of a bigger pie and a chance to make a real living. And it gives horse owners a chance to make money, something that almost none of them did 5 years ago.

Horse racing was once called the "sport of kings." That nickname has not been relevant for years. Before Act 71, most horse owners did it for the competition or the occasional thrill or the attachment to the horses. They were not doing it for the money, because 90 percent of them lost money. The expenses overwhelmed owners.

Now, somebody who is really invested in the business can actually make more money in a single race than the total purse. Imagine a race with a $42,000 purse. The winning owner gets 60 percent, or $25,200. If the horse is a Pennsylvania-bred, the owner gets a 40 percent bonus off the winnings. Now, he has $35,280. If he's the breeder, he gets another 20 percent of that. Now, he has $42,333 on a $42,000 purse. If the owner happens to stand the stallion in Pennsylvania, he gets another 10 percent.

Even without any of this, Pennsylvania had produced the great stallions Storm Cat and Danzig, the brilliant filly Go For Wand, and Smarty Jones, the horse that gave every stakeholder in the state a chance to make money on his investment.

Smarty Jones was, in many ways, a miracle. The colt's owners, Roy and Pat Chapman, hoped to get a horse that could win a few races at Philadelphia Park. What they got instead was a superstar.

Will this state ever produce another Smarty Jones? Not likely, but no longer impossible. The infrastructure is there.

Real Quiet, the 1998 Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner, is a Pennsylvania stallion. His son, Midnite Lute, won the last two Breeders' Cup Sprints.

Two new tracks came on line specifically because of slots. Harrah's Chester Downs and Presque Isle Downs in Erie never would have been built otherwise. So those are jobs that never happen without slots. The harness track Pocono Downs was barely surviving before slots. Hollywood Casino at Penn National, opened in the winter of 2008, is one of America's best racing/casino facilities. The old track was torn down to make way for the new building.

Is horse racing in this state perfect? Hardly.

One wishes the track owners cared half as much about the racing product as they do about the casino product. It is no secret that almost all the marketing efforts go into the casinos. In a way, that is understandable, as the casinos are responsible for almost all of the revenue, while racetracks are expensive and complicated to operate.

Still, the reality is that slots never happen without the impetus from the people who have devoted their lives to horse racing. If the horsemen now stand a chance to make a living, the track operators, who were not exactly making tons of cash, no longer have to be concerned about their economic well-being.

Do the arithmetic. Again, tracks get 45 percent of the revenue. That mammoth $300 million casino rising in the parking lot at Philadelphia Park is set to open Dec. 15. The operator probably won't need to visit too many banks to come up with the cash.

Which was the whole point back when all those people were going to Harrisburg. Horse racing, a business that employs thousands, was badly broken. Now, it actually gives successful people in it a chance to make a sustainable living.

Given the state of the economy in the commonwealth, there might be a debate about how the slot money is divvied up. However that plays out, there is no debate about the effect of the slots bill. In an era when so little works, this is working for the horsemen who it was intended to benefit. *

Send e-mail to jerardd@phillynews.com.